Apple has refreshed its Mac mini lineup with two new chips: an M6 model for everyday speed and efficiency and an M5 Pro model aimed at pros and anyone else who needs serious horsepower.
Whichever Mac mini lands on your desk that little box is capable of a lot more once you build the right setup around it. Here are our recommendations for the gear that will help you get the most out of your Mac mini.
M6 Mac mini Solutions
The M6 Mac mini is built around Thunderbolt 4/USB4 connectivity rather than Thunderbolt 5. Thanks to Thunderbolt 5’s generous backwards compatibility, you can run Thunderbolt 5 docks and drives over one of the M6 Mac mini’s Thunderbolt 4 ports, but because the port itself is Thunderbolt 4, your Thunderbolt 5 gear will run as if it’s Thunderbolt 4 gear.
Since you you won’t see any of the extra bandwidth, there’s no reason to pay for headroom you can’t use yet unless you’re absolutely certain you’ll be running a Thunderbolt 5 machine in the near future. With that in mind, these options take full advantage of the M6 Mac mini’s full bandwidth capability at a lower price point.
OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock: The first full-featured Thunderbolt dock with a built-in power supply. That means there’s no external power brick, making the Go Dock easier to fit into a crowded desk setup and way less bulky when throwing into a bag.
OWC Express 1M2: An ultra-fast, reliable, portable, and DIY USB4 NVMe SSD. Buy it ready-to-run, or go the DIY route and drop in your own M.2 drive.
OWC Express 4M2: A four-slot USB4 enclosure for anyone sitting on a pile of spare NVMe SSDs and looking for an easy way to put them to work as fast external storage.
Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) Cables: Certified for universal use across Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, and USB-C gear, so it’s the safe, compatible choice for connecting your Mac mini to displays, docks, and everything else.
M5 Pro Mac mini solutions
Step up to the M5 Pro model and you’ve got full Thunderbolt 5 bandwidth to play with, which opens the door to the fastest storage and connectivity lineup out there.
OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock: An 11-port connectivity hub that turns a single Thunderbolt port into multi-display 8K support, ultra-fast data transfer, 2.5GbE networking, and up to 140W of power delivery.
OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub: A compact, fanless way to expand one Thunderbolt connection into three Thunderbolt 5 ports plus a USB-A port, with up to 80Gb/s bi-directional performance and support for up to three 8K displays.
OWC StudioStack: A low-profile, aircraft-grade aluminum hybrid storage solution that combines SSD and HDD storage in one unit, up to 32TB at speeds up to 6302MB/s, while adding three more Thunderbolt 5 ports and USB-A ports.
OWC ThunderBlade X12: A Thunderbolt 5-powered production RAID SSD hitting up to 6600MB/s, with RAID 5 capability built for high-end film and multi-cam 8K/12K workflows.
OWC Express 4M2 Ultra: Thunderbolt 5 NVMe RAID storage pre-configured with SoftRAID, available in 4TB through 32TB capacities, or as a bare enclosure if you’d rather build your own.
OWC Envoy Ultra: A rugged, IP67-rated Thunderbolt 5 portable SSD delivering real-world speeds over 6000MB/s, bus-powered with a built-in cable so it’s ready to travel between Macs and PCs alike.
OWC Express 1M2 80G: Pictured in the image at the top, this is a USB4 80Gb/s NVMe portable SSD delivering over 6000MB/s real-world performance, available ready-to-run or as a DIY enclosure.
OWC Mercury Helios 5S: The simplest way to add PCIe cards to a small form factor Mac like the Mac mini, while also adding more Thunderbolt 5 ports to your setup.
OWC Thunderbolt 5 Cables: Fully certified up to 2 meters, built to be the fastest and most compatible cable for connecting today’s, tomorrow’s, and yesterday’s Thunderbolt and USB-C devices.
